Homeless and absent much of my senior year in a Miami-area high school, I didn’t think I would be able to accomplish anything. I started having problems by the time I was 14 until I was 17.

When I returned to school during finals week my senior year, I was given an ultimatum: Pass my exams — many of them in honors classes — or repeat senior year.

I was motivated and determined to improve my life, and this ultimatum put me on that path. I did graduate and shortly after relocated to the Fort Myers area. I found opportunity first as a volunteer with the Lee County Homeless Coalition and eventually gained employment as a medical assistant to nurse practitioner Sue Bingham.

Sue is my favorite person in the world and the reason I wanted to be a nurse. She taught me wound care, triage and how to take one’s blood pressure. I just fell in love with the medical aspect of it. She pushed me to go to school. I wanted to make something of myself.

A scholarship from the Homeless Coalition gave me the initial push. I also received three scholarships awarded by the Southwest Florida Community Foundation from donors who had earmarked the funds for students pursing nursing degrees and similar careers.

The support and scholarships I received made me realize there were people out there who cared enough to help a stranger. It wasn’t just the financial help. Their support gave me hope, knowing there were people I didn’t know who believed in me, and I wasn’t going to let them down.

I started my education at Edison College (now Florida SouthWestern State College) in 2003 on $1,000 from the John I. and Madeleine R. Taeni Scholarship Fund. At Edison, I found another mentor in the late professor William Polk who steered me toward the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. I became president and a member of Edison’s All USA and Florida Academic teams, traveling to Dallas for a conference and earning additional scholarships through my involvement in the community.

I was seeing a world I didn’t know existed. I continued my studies in 2004 with $500 from the Community Foundation’s Faye Lynn Roberts Education Scholarship and balanced schoolwork with marriage, motherhood and volunteer work with the Homeless Coalition, which I chaired for three years.

A third scholarship — $2,000 from the Doris W. Frey Memorial Fund — helped me complete bachelor’s and master’s degrees simultaneously at the University of South Florida, where I graduated in 2008 among the top five percent of my class. I also received certification as an advanced registered nurse practitioner certified in internal medicine.

Once I had my degree, it was important to give back to the community that helped me. I came to Lehigh Acres several years ago and realized there was a great need here, so last October, I opened Suncoast Medical Centers in Lehigh.

Today, my focus is on empowering my patients with information, letting them know why they’re taking certain medications so they can make better decisions for themselves. I’m in this profession to help people get better, and I make sure I spend enough time with each patient I see.

I’m so grateful for the caring donors who established scholarships to help students like me. If it weren’t for others who nurtured and supported me financially and physically, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I had encouragement every step of the way, and it was always in the back of my mind that people, complete strangers, were giving me a chance. I want those who supported me with scholarships to know they made all the difference in someone’s life by taking their hard-earned money and saying, “Well, I’m going to invest in someone’s future,” because I was supposed to fall through the cracks.

I hope to one day pay it forward with my own scholarship for nursing students and a legacy for my 20-year old son and 13-year old daughter.